Loona looks like a tiny dog on wheels, and may be described as a cross between a social robot and a security robot. — KEYi Technology
While the first thing that most people think of when it comes to having a robot at home is usually some sort of robovacuum that skitters around on its own, there’s a lot more to the world of home robotics.
Take Jibo, a social robot designed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology robotics professor Cynthia Breazeal, which could recognise faces, understand and respond to things people say, do home assistant tasks, and even dance.
Though it ultimately proved ill-fated, Jibo announced its own demise to users in 2019 after it was discontinued, saying: “Maybe someday when robots are way more advanced than today, and everyone has them in their homes, you can tell yours that I said hello.”
Then there are the robotic pets – Sony’s been at it since 1999 with its robot dog Aibo – which numerous studies say are invaluable in helping elders in care homes avoid loneliness, with others noting a reduction in psychotropic medication and improved moods among dementia patients.
But the future may have much more in store when it comes to bringing robots home.
A team of engineers at Princeton University have built a robot specifically meant for tidying up the house – aptly named TidyBot.
TidyBot is a robotic arm that moves around on four wheels, is capable of doing simple tasks like sorting light- and dark-coloured laundry, picking up toys and storing them in a drawer, and tossing empty cans into a recycling bin. — Princeton University
TidyBot is a robotic arm that moves around on four wheels, is capable of doing simple tasks like sorting light- and dark-coloured laundry, picking up toys and storing them in a drawer, and tossing empty cans into a recycling bin.
The robot uses a combination of object detection, image classification, and large language models (LLMs) to generalise what an object is, and then determine where it should go.
Meanwhile, robotic domestic helpers could make a debut as soon as sometime this year, with Samsung having announced the EX1, a robot intended to assist the elderly with exercise, though no further details or launch dates have been confirmed.
There is a possibility that the company would also integrate LLMs into the EX1, considering that it said it would “actively incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT into its businesses” during a press conference back in March.
Prosper Robotics on the other hand wants to build a genuine robo-butler in the same vein as the Mister Handy robots from the Fallout video game series.
According to the company, the household robot will have two arms and run on wheels, while being capable of tasks such as doing the laundry, cleaning surfaces and floors, putting things away, folding clothes, and even making salads.
The robot will also come with 50 to 100 tools that can be swapped depending on the task at hand, like suction cups for opening plastic containers or a specially designed mop for cleaning.
Jibo, a social robot, could recognise faces, understand and respond to things people say, do home assistant tasks, and even dance. — Jibo
However at first the robot will not be entirely autonomous, as it will require remote human operation to train it in the tasks it will be performing in a household.
Prosper Robotics said in May that it aims to have a commercial version ready in the next two years, with a price tag ranging between €5,000-€10,000 (RM25,136-RM50,273).
It would also charge a subscription fee for maintenance and insurance, along with teleoperation for training and more complex tasks.
When it comes to robotic animals, Boston Dynamics have reportedly integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT with Spot, the company’s robotic dog, back in April.
The implementation gives Spot the ability to speak in complete sentences via text-to-speech with responses generated by ChatGPT.
The integration of ChatGPT reportedly gives Spot the ability to speak in complete sentences via text-to-speech with responses generated by ChatGPT. — Boston Dynamics
Other more home-centric robo-pets include PetBot Loona from KEYi Technology and Moflin from Vanguard Industries.
Loona looks like a tiny dog on wheels, and may be described as a cross between a social robot and a security robot.
The security aspect comes with its equipped camera and speaker, which are intended to monitor the home via a mobile app, while the social aspect comes via activities like playing fetch and chasing laser pointers.
It is also claimed to be capable of interacting with humans and the surrounding world using sights, sounds, and haptics, and is also said to be able to recognise up to 20 different people.
Moflin functions closer to an emotional support animal, with a fluffy appearance and movements meant to emulate a real living creature. — Vanguard Industries
Meanwhile Moflin functions closer to an emotional support animal, with a fluffy appearance and movements meant to emulate a real living creature.
Using an array of sensors including touch, microphones, and gyroscopes, these fluffy robots – like Loona – can reportedly adjust their movements based on their surroundings.
At the same time, Moflin robots can purportedly use that information to develop a unique personality that adapts based on its surroundings and interactions with its owner.
Much of the upcoming developments in robotics will also have an element of artificial intelligence (AI), either in helping it understand tasks or in assistant duties where it provides information to a human user.
Google’s DeepMind announced in July that its RT-2 AI model would allow robots to learn how to complete tasks on the fly, without requiring prior training, thanks to its ability to generalise information.
This means that a robot could learn how to solve a complex problem from an existing store of training data and apply them to a human request, effectively skipping the need to manually program in actions for that specific request.
With all that on the horizon, perhaps Jibo’s final message doesn’t seem that far-fetched after all.
